Page 30 of Reckless
“And you haven’t heard from her since? She hasn’t messaged you or anything?”
“You’re making me regret telling you at all. No, nothing has happened since. I went home, went to bed, then came here to be with you.”
“I’m just trying to work out whether you’re going to break her heart all over again.”
I sighed, shooting her a suspicious glance. “Mom, you know as well as I do that she’s the one who did the heartbreaking. I was just the dumb one who let her push me away.”
“I think you both did a bit of it. You were both young and dumb. But both of you are older now, andyouneed to be sensible with her heart. I know it might seem like you’re untouchable sometimes in your rock star status, but to her, you’re still Gage, her boyfriend from high school.”
I shoved both hands through my hair. “I haven’t lost my humanity.”
“I’m not saying that.” She sighed loudly. “I just want you to be careful. Sooner or later, whatever happens here, you’ll be back with your band, touring the world again. I’m trying to remind you that there will be a poor young woman left behind who has been left behind too many times already.”
“Yeah…” I collapsed back in the chair again, tapping my fingers on the cracked armrest. “Yeah, I know you’re right.”
“It can be hard to resist that pull while you’re both in the same town, but you won’t always be. It can’t ever go back to what it once was because you were both young kids then, living in the same town, with a bright, hazy future in front of you. Things were different then.”
“If only that idiot kid hadn’t got drunk. If only Stephen and Hank were still alive…”
Mom rested her hand on mine, silencing me. “We can say ‘if only’ but it doesn’t get us anywhere. Life hands us whatever it does, and it’s up to us to deal with it. We can’t control what happens, only our reaction to it.”
That didn’t only apply to Kelly, I realized. She was referring to her diagnosis as well. She wanted me to contain myself and deal with my emotions better. Easier said than done, but I’d give it a try.
“Okay, Mom. I’ll be careful. You don’t have to worry.”
“Look, I’ll be honest, if you were going to marry Kelly, then I’d be all for it, but that isn’t really in the cards, is it? Unless you’re going to come back here and write songs, have that farm you used to dream about as a kid.”
I chuckled, trying to act like her comment amused me, but even as a teen I’d imagined Kelly as my wife, with little kids who looked like her running around a farm that I worked myself, writing songs in my free time. Something in my chest caught. Was there a little part of me still holding out for the chance that could happen?
Knowing I was nearer to that dream than I had been in a very long time had me a wreck. Mom had seen it, but luckily, not the extent of it.
The way she’d seemed to go numb under my touch, the cold look she’d given me before she insisted she needed to go home made me wonder what was wrong with me. After all this time, thinking about Kelly wearing a white dress at the mere mention of marriage was a bad idea. “No, Mom, marriage is way out of the picture.”
“Twenty-five isn’t a spring chicken, you know. Marriage wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. You could take her with you, get her out of this town. It might inspire her to do some of the writing she stopped when they died.”
I tried to resist, but the picture filled my brain anyway. Kelly and I vowing to be together forever. A tour bus as a first house. Her happily plunking out books as I rocked out the fans night after night then came home to her. It was perfect. Too perfect. A part of me wanted it so bad it actually hurt.
But, too much had happened, our lives were too far apart. Even if we still shared something deep.
It could never happen.
Could it?
* * *
What am I doing?
A few hours after the talk with Mom, I was standing in front of Kelly’s door.
I gave my head a shake as I stood in front of the one place I most definitely shouldn’t be.
I’d told myself over and over again that I would avoid Kelly like the plague, at least until we were able to have a conversation about the us that was not anusany longer, and it wouldn’t be weird. But the magnetic pull had dragged me in.
“Here goes nothing.” I raised my fist and knocked on the door, wondering when she’d moved into this cute little house. It seemed nice, a bit small, but clean, well-lit, and safe.
“Coming.” Her voice through the door made my heart skip a beat. She had this sweet, lilting tone that struck me hard, seemed to break through my skin and filter into my blood.
The door swung open, and Kelly’s wide, shocked eyes made me want to kiss her. And I would have if I’d thought she wouldn’t kick me off her porch, or if the black and white dog trying to get past her wouldn’t have knocked me off first.
